Saturday, December 12, 2015

Dreaming of a White Christmas?

December 12, 2015

It looks like around here we'll be dreaming of a white Christmas this year. In our house, this has been the source of much weeping and wailing (OK, I'm exaggerating just a bit, but I can say with absolute honesty that SOMEONE in this house is not very happy about the amount of red showing on the thermometer). I have to admit that for a Western New Yorker, a California Christmas doesn't quite have the same feel. I don't mind not having to shovel, but I am somewhat eager to try out my new front end loader on my tractor. And I do like the looks of the Christmas lights reflecting on the snow.

Some thirty five years ago we lived in Alabama. As in New York, not the southern state. If you're confused by that, so was I when the bishop told me that's where we would be living for a few years. We were living in Chicago at the time, and when he told us we were being appointed to Alabama, I thought he was joking. After all, I had told him we wanted to get back home near family. Believe it or not, there is an Alabama, NY; just as there is a Rome, Egypt, Nashville, Greece, and most paradisiacal of all, Eden, New York. I can't remember exactly which year it was, but it was unseasonably warm then, too. And someone (we won't say who) was dismayed that there was no snow. On Christmas Eve we walked across the grass to our usual 11:00 service, but when we opened the doors at the end of the hour, we were greeted by a magical gentle snowfall that would put the Hallmark Channel to shame. The ground was covered with a sparkling carpet of pure white. I've never experienced anything like that since.

There's no real reason to mention all this; after all, Christmas isn't about snowfall. I get amused by the television programs that purport to instruct us about the "real meaning of Christmas," and then go off on some smarmy, oozy-woozy feel good tripe that ignores the reality of the original Christmas. As much as I love the lights, the caroling, the music on the radio, and even the Santas ho-ho-hoing their way through never ending lines of little kids, Christmas is really about a dark and dying world desperately in need of a Savior, and of a Savior who came in humble poverty and insignificance to drive a stake in the ground that Satan had usurped, reclaiming that which had been lost, and putting evil on notice. Christmas is honored not in all the gifts, as nice as they are, certainly not in trees and tinsel, but rather every time someone in the name of Christ forgives, or receives forgiveness; every time love overcomes hatred, and wherever the Good News is proclaimed and someone is born again. I am grateful tonight that whether green or white, Christmas is Christ, and he is always here, shining in the darkness, bringing life to those who have been dead in sin, and hope to those who have given up. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness is not able to overcome it." (John 1:5).

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